Haarlem: The city of breathtaking sunset

Haarlem is a small city in Netherlands, not far away from Amsterdam. And though it may have plenty of historical sights and cultural attractions, I didn’t have a chance to marvel at the beautiful Grote Kerk or visit Frans Hals museum, not even drink a beer in the famous Jopenkerk church-brewery. But perhaps I took the most important from this city – the stunning beauty of nature I’ll never, ever forget.

Here in Haarlem I saw one of the most beautiful sunsets in my life. It feels like I saw multiple sunsets that day, because it was changing its colors from yellow to orange and from purple to pink and red and then orange again. And as it was a Christmas weekend and the city was transformed into a ghost town, there was nobody around, just the sunset and the peace – sometimes disturbed with my loud exclamations about the unbelievable scene.

Though the pure beauty enjoyer and the picture taker were constantly fighting inside me, the second one won from time to time and so here we’ll have photos of that unphotographable sunset with no postproduction for majority of them and very little for the rest.

But first things first, let’s taste the beauty of the city itself

The Grote Markt

And the golden hour

The nice canals

And here it came…

And the clouds changed their color

And it spread over the city

And created a unique harmony with the silence of the city

Then gradually became purple

And more and more purple

Then started to burn

Then the night came

And the windmill stood there marveling at the water reflection of Christmas lights

Thanks Haarlem for the peace and silence, and for the most unphotographable sunset